Loading...
Pre-App - Merrill Gardens - 2006M group September 26, 2006 Sharon Fierro City of Campbell Community Development Director 70 North First Street Campbell, CA 95008-1436 RE: Pre 2006-36 -Preapplication for Mixed Use Development at 2091 South Winchester Blvd. Dear Sharon, I wanted to thank you for your letter dated September 18, 2006 and respond to you with a few clarifications regarding the proposed project at 2091 South Winchester Boulevard. I'm requesting that you respond back to me in writing or in a meeting so that we can resolve these issues before proceeding with a formal application. We are very interested in working these issues out with you in an expeditious manner so that we can proceed with the application. Preapplication Review We submitted a preliminary application in order to get a full picture of the issues facing the project from all of the relevant departments. As of the date of your letter, the plans had not been routed around to any of the other departments. I'm requesting that the plans be circulated for comments as soon as possible. This will help us fully understand all the comments and issues from all departments in addition to those outlined in your letter. Use Designation At our meeting on September 7th, we agreed that we would come to a mutual agreement on how to define this use. Your letter states that the use is defined as a mixed use project with retail on the ground floor, two levels of senior housing with a Convalescent Hospital In keeping with the spirit of our earlier meeting, I would like for us to call this project a Residential Care Facility (RCFE). As you've noted this project is zoned P-D (Planned Development) and does not have any specific zoning requirements. The only policy document governing this site is the General Plan. This site is designated as Central Commercial and is governed by the policy statement: metropolitan planning group i n c 4 0 0 west e v e l y n avenue S u n n y v a l e C a l i f o r n i a 9 4 0 8 6 City of Campbell September 26, 2006 Page 2 "The Central Commercial designation is used for the heart of Campbell including parts of Campbell and Winchester Avenues in Downtown Campbell. This area is intended to provide shopping, services and entertainment. Building forms in this designation edge the street and should include retail commercial uses on the ground floor with either office or residential uses on the second and third floors." Since General Plans are meant to be guiding documents to help the community and decision makers outline a framework for future development and Zoning Ordinances are the tool to establish allowable uses and development standards, we feel that since this is a P-D zone there should be some flexibility in the allowed uses. If one were to take the Central Commercial language literally, as you have suggested, only retail on the ground floor and residential on the upper floors would be permitted. This would not be desirable from a land use point of view as it would preclude other desirable and beneficial land uses such as hotels, including the recently constructed Marriott's at 690 E. Campbell Avenue. We are asking that you take a look at the merits of this protect and see that it can be an asset to the community. It would bring a population to the downtown that would utilize the services that are within walking distance during the day, evening and weekends; such services as the Farmer's Market would be wonderful for this senior community. The General Plan encourages "residential" for the upper floors. There are many different kinds of residential including: senior housing, multi-family, single family etc. Under senior housing your code defines several kinds including: assisted living facilities, residential care facilities, residential service facilities and group homes. We see this type of product, which is licensed by the State of California as a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE), and would ask that it be called that for purposes of this analysis. By calling it what it is licensed for by the State, we don't feel that the use should then be prohibited, as your letter indicated, but rather it is just a type of well regulated, safe and decent senior housing, which is a subset of "residential." The Campbell zoning code definition of Residential Service Facility clearly describes the use as proposed. Density We still find it challenging to have this project comply with the General Plan density standards for residential. The zoning ordinance tries to quantify uses to minimize impacts on the community. One of the leading impacts is always parking. This type of project serves an older population that does not generally drive on a regular basis. According to the zoning code, 52 parking spaces are required for 159 units (159 units x .33 parking spaces). If this project were a typical multi-family project built at the same density it would require 556 parking spaces (159 units x 3.5 parking spaces). It is hard to understand how these two uses with such different parking demands should be treated the same under the City's density requirements. However, we are agreeable to work within the City's density limitations with the exception of the Alzheimer units. City of Campbell September 26, 2006 Page 3 As a full service RCFE, the project contains 21 rooms that are set up especially for Alzheimer patients. These rooms don't have kitchens and are clearly not the same as a residential unit. However, they also don't meet the definition of a convalescent home in that they do not have 24-hour licensed nursing personnel. The zoning definition specifically excludes RCFE units. We would ask that you look at these units as a "service" use allowed under the General Plan. They should not count towards the density requirement, just at the other services provided on site, such as the common dining room and retail are not counted towards the density. Other communities such as Palo Alto (for their new RCFE building at the corner of Page Mili and El Camino Real) have excluded the Alzheimer units and classified them as service uses. If we are required to adhere to the density requirements, we will be asking for a density bonus between 25-35%. We would like to sit down with you and Kirk Heinrichs, since you are both involved in this issue to discuss in more detail. In order for this to be financially feasible, the affordable requirements must not be "cumulative." The 15% inclusionary requirement must count towards the bonus requirement. Otherwise, 35% affordable units are required to achieve a 35% density bonus, which does not constitute a density "bonus." The proposed project contains: Alzheimer Units 21 Inde endent Living Units 26 Assisted Living Units 112 Total Units 159 Land Area Your letter indicates that the site area is 2.53 acres. However, the site is approximately 3.5 acres which does change some of the density calculations you provided. It appears that you may have not included the land area of the adjacent lot at APN: 305-31-052. The proposed development on this lot includes the Alzheimer units on the ground floor and RCFE units on the second floor. The applicant has been working to include this parcel into the project. Currently this lot only has access off of Winchester across a 15- foot wide easement and is essentially land locked. Including this lot in this project is a great way to fully utilize this site for redevelopment. We appreciate the time you are taking to review this project, and hope that you work with us to see that this can be a wonderful asset to the community and be a fantastic redevelopment of this site. We are open to meeting with you again if necessary and hope to hear from you as soon as possible. Thank you for your consideration. City of Campbell September 26, 2006 Page 4 Regards, Whitney McNair Metropolitan Planning Group cc: Kirk Heinrichs, Redevelopment Manager, City of Campbell Jackie Young Lind, Senior Planner, City of Campbell Geoff Bradley, Metropolitan Planning Group Libby Glass, Barry Swenson Builder 777 North Pirst Street, 5th Floor San Jose, CA 95112 Thompson Trust 245-M Mt. Hermon Road # 19$ Scotts Valley, CA 95066 Annette Martin 2075 Winchester Blvd. # 107 Campbell, CA 95008 James D. Rivard and Ryan Leong, SRM Development, LLC 104 S. Division Spokane, WA 99202